Jean Culpepper Smith passed away peacefully on Saturday, March 2, 2024, at Willow Creek Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Byram, Mississippi. Funeral services will be 2 p.m. Sunday, March 10, in the Nowell-Massey Funeral Home Chapel with Bro. Dewayne Kelsey officiating. Visitation will be the day of the service from 1:00 p.m. until service time at Nowell-Massey Funeral Home in Louisville. Interment will immediately follow the service in Memorial Cemetery in Louisville.
Jean was born December 6, 1930, the second child of Charles Culpepper and Hannie Beatrice Hill. She had one brother, Joseph Thomas Culpepper (JT); and three sisters: Geraldine (Pal) Prisock, Francis Garretson (Fran), and Patricia Roberson (Pat). Jean married Henry Donald Smith (Donnie) in 1948 and they had three sons: Donald Bruce Smith, Ronald Gene Smith, and Thomas Brent Smith. On May 3, 1991, Jean married Tommy Hurt from the Ellison Ridge Community.
Jean was born 93 years ago. About everything in the world has changed since 1930. Imagine a world without a cell phone or GPS. Imagine going from riding in a horse and wagon to go to church to an automobile with heat and air conditioning. Jean was a woman always searching for new and different things. She attended Bond school in Winston County, Mississippi State University and Mississippi State College for Women (MSCW). She was a landscape designer, a florist, secretary, business owner, researcher, author, wife, and mother. She researched and wrote: Culpepper Footprints on the Sands of Time; she co-wrote the Hill Family Tree, and she researched and wrote one of the Janie Sharp Stories, Pentecost at Seven Forks Then and Now Sowing the Seed, along with family tree research for many families across the country over the years. She was active in the Louisville Chapter of Business and Professional Women’s Group (B&PW). She was also active in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and was a Past Worthy Matron of the Louisville Mississippi Chapter of the Eastern Star. She owned a florist, Women’s Dress Shop, landscape business, and a Family Tree Research Business.
Jean is survived by her two sons, Dr. Ronald Gene Smith and wife Sandra and Thomas Brent Smith and wife Ashley; and two sisters, Francis Garretson and Patricia Roberson. She also leaves behind six grandchildren: Shane Smith, Matt Smith, Garrett Smith, Fletcher Smith, Shannon Smith, Bruce Smith, Jr. “Peanut”; seven great-grandchildren: Noah Smith, Sam Smith, Jonathan Smith, Rebecca Smith, Nick Nations, Carmen Luke, Aurora Smith; as well as two great-great-grandchildren: Lakenn Luke and Hadley Luke, in addition to many loving nieces, nephews, and cousins, all very special. She is preceded in death by her father, Charles Emett Culpepper (Charlie); mother, Hannie Beatrice Hill (Hannie B); her brother, Joseph T. Culpepper (JT) and wife, Lucille; her sister, Geraldine Culpepper Prisock and husband, Leonard; her brother-in-law, Delbert Garretson; and her eldest son, Donald Bruce Smith, and husbands, Henry Donald Smith and Tommy Hurt.
